


in the dark, be your light

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Accidental Bonding, F/F, Female Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Fluff, Misgendering, Mutual Pining, Podfic Welcome, Rating May Change, Romantic Angst, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Secret Identity, Soul Bond, Telepathic Bond, Trans Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, but this might not work, trying for more fluff than angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21587590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Ladybug is probably straight, certainly doesn't want her partner to know who she is outside the magic, and absolutely positivelydoes notwant to know her partner's name.Chatonne Noire can cope with that. Ladybug is the only person Chatonne can be truthful with; it isn't dishonesty not to tell her something she refuses to learn.Chatonne Noire cannotcope with feeling, as intimately as though these were Chatonne's own emotions, how Hawkmoth or some lesser bully tangles her Lady's stomach in knots and rips burning holes through her Lady's heart. Not while staying as helplessly distant as if she were watching from the moon, when for all Chatonne knows, Ladybug is at the next desk. And once they can copy homework from each other's thoughts—What will Ladybug think when Chatonne can't keep this secret anymore? And why does the thought of knowing terrify Ladybug so?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 19
Kudos: 206





	in the dark, be your light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Socchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Socchan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [trans lesbian love square](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/538327) by thescuttlebugg. 



> An early birthday present for Socchan! (The rest is, uh. It will follow. Eventually.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Content note: panic attack" is close enough to correct.

"Can't breathe!" Ladybug gasps out, clutching her chest.

Chatonne Noire sweeps her into her arms and vaults out of range of the cackling akuma. (Someone upset by her boyfriend saying floral arrangement isn't something to pour one's heart and soul into, isn't worthwhile, isn't even _art_ : the woman has a point, but all Chatonne's sympathy flew right out of her head with that blast of petals to Ladybug's heart.) "Gonna be all right," she murmurs, frantic reassurance to herself as much as to her partner. "Gonna be okay—"

On an apartment balcony half a block away, Chatonne sets Ladybug down: she's hyperventilating—never good—but Chatonne has a tool for that. "Easy, my lady," she says in Ladybug's ear, resettling them so Ladybug is on her lap, held as tightly as Chatonne honestly dares. She has the polygon breathing gif saved, so it's only seconds to navigate to her mundane phone's Marinette Toolbox folder via her baton. "Breathe in as it gets bigger," Chatonne says. "Out as it shrinks."

Ladybug tries to match her breaths to the gif, to keep her rib cage expanding as the gif goes from point to octagon and contracting as it passes through each smaller shape, but she's pale and sweating and has a bone-crushing grasp on Chatonne's wrist and none of those are good signs—

"No air!" she gasps. "My—my heart, I—"

Her pulse is racing—more than three beats a second, Chatonne counts, her palm pressed to Ladybug's heart—that's not good—and she's sagging against Chatonne, her grip slipping—

"Tikki, help!" Chatonne prays, taking Ladybug's yo-yo from her hip and pressing it into her hand. "Bug, Lucky Charm?"

"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug agrees weakly.

The pink sparkles spit a slim rectangular packet into Chatonne's hand, wrapped in black-spotted red foil. Chatonne tears it open: "Pokémon cards?" she says, staring disbelievingly down at the Venusaur that's staring back at her. It knows Fury Strikes (she reads, mentally rotating the text), a luck-based damaging move, and Leech Seed, which heals Venusaur if it damages the opposing Pokémon, and— "Oh come on these aren't even the same game!" There's five Yu-Gi-Oh! cards: Fire Princess, Soul Absorption (why is this a holographic card?), Macro Cosmos, Rainbow Life, and Skull-Mark Ladybug. (The white skull-and-crossbones markings on its black elytra is the creepiest thing she has seen in a while, and the black-and-glowing-lime background— _Chatonne_ 's colors—is the second creepiest.)

"Confused," Ladybug mumbles, thumbing through the cards. She's still pacing her breathing to the gif, but it doesn't look like it's helping her.

"Mood." All six cards came out of the packet face-up; Venusaur is the only one that's upside-down. "Not sure if this is our Venusaur and she is also confused or if she's the other guy's with no statuses," Chatonne says. The Spell card, one of the Traps, and Fire Princess have continuous effects; the other Trap goes off whenever a cost is paid, and the Skull-Mark's effect triggers— "Oooh, that's a _vicious_ combo," Chatonne says admiringly. "I'm taking notes."

"Hm? Mm." Ladybug taps the Venusaur. "Video game. Multi-turn status?"

Oh, _hell_. "Yes. Yes it is." Chatonne presses a kiss (entirely platonic, she is prepared to swear on her mother's grave) to Ladybug's hair. "Getting worse?"

"Mm-hm."

"Can't have that." The game animation involves planting a seed on the move's target for the move's user to leech health through. If the Venusaur is Hawkmoth's— "I don't see the seed, though," Chatonne says—it'd be where the akuma's petal blast hit, wouldn't it? so Ladybug's breastbone? "—and I didn't feel anything where it hit you—"

"Weak to Fire," Ladybug mumbles.

Cool. They are in neither a Pokémon battle nor a Yu-Gi-Oh!–world shadow duel and Chatonne cannot summon Fire Princess to go blast this akuma to ash. "Sorry, I left my Incineroar in my other jeans."

There is definitely a move that gets rid of Leech Seed and the like in the _Pokémon_ video games; Chatonne has no idea what it is. But the _Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters_ anime had a monster fire-blast the terrain to negate the opponent's terrain-based attack boost—or something; she mostly remembers the green-haired opponent being a nasty cheating creep—which worked because Rule of Cool, not because it was according to Hoyle, so—

"If we're mixing rules anyway, I bet I can destroy the leech seed," Chatonne says. "It worked on Guitar Villain's solos, right?" Sound waves are only sort of tangible to begin with, even with magic woven through.

Ladybug grumbles—she is breathing way too shallowly, Chatonne notices, even _with_ pacing the polygon gif—and tilts the hand not limply grasping her partner's wrist into a thumbs-up.

 _Okay, Plagg,_ Chatonne thinks loudly (her heart pounding), making sure her ringed hand is a couple decimeters clear of everything but air, _I want to destroy the thing that's draining Ladybug. Not Ladybug herself, definitely not her Miraculous—just the leech seed thing, nothing else—_

Please let this work, please let this work—

"Cataclysm!"

Chatonne moves her palm and her bubbling power closer, closer, carefully closer—

Something flares Cherenkov blue and _burning_ —

Ladybug screams—

She's killed her partner, Chatonne realizes in one heartbroken, soul-bleeding instant—

The blue burns out, the Cataclysm expended: Ladybug rolls out of Chatonne's abruptly-slack grip, breath heaving, and flashes a grin: " _Damn_ that feels good," she says, and vaults off the roof.

Chatonne should be right behind her. Chatonne feels like all her bones have turned to raspberry jam.

Ladybug's back on the roof in two more minutes. "It was her flower pot," she says, scooping up the cards and discarded foil, and tosses them into the air: "Miraculous Ladybug!"

Strength rushes back into Chatonne's limbs. "Well, that was a pain in the bud," she remarks, bounding upright.

"Don't soft-petal it," Ladybug retorts. Chatonne, lightheaded and -hearted with relief, grins and holds out her fist; Ladybug responds in kind. "You were just looking about as bad as I was feeling," she adds. "Any idea why?"

Chatonne shrugs. "I dunno what I did. She didn't hit me, I don't think…"

"Not that I noticed?" Ladybug shakes her head. "But you're okay now?" Chatonne nods; Ladybug's stance loses some tension. "You said you liked that card combination? I've never played—what's it do?"

"It is a _beautiful_ combo," Chatonne says fervently. "See, if you have Fire Princess out, anytime your life goes up any, your opponent's goes down some. Soul Absorption, any time a card is banished, your life goes up." Something in Ladybug's quizzical expression is confusing Chatonne and she doesn't know what. "Macro Cosmos, any time a card gets discarded, it actually gets banished. Rainbow Life, any turn on which you discard a card, if you should take damage that turn, your life goes up that much instead. And Skull-Mark Ladybug, when it's discarded, your life goes up." Chatonne grins at her, impressed with herself.

"Your opponents must _hate_ you," Ladybug says, laughing, and blows her a kiss. Chatonne, not to be outdone, catches kiss and hand both to return it, leaving an electric-green lip print on the back of Ladybug's glove. Ladybug blushes. "Bug out!"

Chatonne watches her go, feeling bittersweet longing, and then vaults a block in the other direction and down to street level in an alley. Adrien is supposed to be in chemistry class right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [polygon breathing gif](https://i.imgur.com/Huou7Gh.gif)
> 
> [Venusaur](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Venusaur_\(Expedition_67\)); [Fire Princess](https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Princess); [Soul Absorption](https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Soul_Absorption); [Macro Cosmos](https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Macro_Cosmos); [Rainbow Life](https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Rainbow_Life); [Skull-Mark Ladybug](https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Skull-Mark_Ladybug)


End file.
